To Speak to Our Time

The risk-taking composer of 400 published works taught for sixty-three years at Juilliard and Eastman, and has given masterclasses and workshops at over 300 universities world-wide. Having studied with Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Randall Thompson, and others, he knows just about everyone on the twentieth-century American music scene and has received numerous awards including ASCAP’s “Aaron Copland Lifetime Achievement Award.” He believes that one should compose in the “energy of his time,” and is without doubt one of the greatest living composers and conductors. Sixty years of his compositions are represented on this album: from A Hymn of Praise to several works written in the last five years. Known for his optimism and “life-affirming spirit,” he is uniquely positioned to speak to our time. At age ten Samuel Adler narrowly escaped Nazi Germany during Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass.” As he and his father collected sheet music in the loft of the synagogue, saving all that